Feedback deadline is: November 23, 2025
Summary
The College is seeking input from registrants, members of the public and system partners about proposed updates to the mandatory Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety (AIMS) Program, as outlined in the draft supplemental Standard of Practice, during a 60-day open consultation.
The proposed updates address alignment with the national standards and changes to program requirements, as well as some minor language revisions that do not change the intent of the program or introduce new requirements.
Overview of Changes
The AIMS Program was formally launched in 2019 to strengthen medication safety and quality improvement practices in Ontario’s community pharmacies.
In 2024, the College conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the AIMS Program and identified opportunities to enhance the program’s overall effectiveness and better align with other provinces.
In June 2025, the Board of Directors confirmed that community pharmacies would select their own medication incident reporting platform that complies with criteria outlined by the College and supports data contribution to ISMP’s National Incident Data Repository (NIDR). Community pharmacies would be responsible for platform costs, while the College would cover costs for submitting data to the NIDR.
Proposed Changes
At the September 2025 Board meeting, the Board approved the following changes to the program, subject to public consultation:
- The College will update the requirements outlined in the supplemental Standard of Practice to mandate the following:
- All registered pharmacy staff will have unique logins for the medication incident reporting platform at their primary place of practice
- A safety self-assessment (SSA) be completed at least once every two years
- Continuous quality improvement (CQI) meetings be held at least once every quarter.
- The College will adapt the NAPRA Model Standards of Practice for Continuous Quality Improvement and Medication Incident Reporting by Pharmacy Professionals, based on the updated requirements listed above.
Other changes have been made to improve the clarity of the supplemental standard, in alignment with the College’s second strategic goal on effective communication and the organization’s commitment to transparency and clear, action-oriented language.
Note that the College’s expectations regarding medication incident reporting remain unchanged.
How You Can Participate
The College is inviting all pharmacy professionals, system partners, and members of the public to consider the proposed changes noted above, review the draft updates to the supplemental Standard of Practice, and comment below by November 23, 2025.
When reviewing and commenting on the proposed changes, please consider the following:
- Clarity and Understanding. Are the proposed changes clearly written and easy to understand?
- Alignment with the AIMS Program. Do the proposed changes align with the objectives of the AIMS Program to improve medication safety, promote a safety culture, and support continuous quality improvement?
- Implementation. Do you anticipate any barriers or challenges to implementing the proposed changes?
The feedback we receive is published publicly in accordance with our Posting Guidelines.
Supporting Documents
A summary chart of the proposed changes along with their rationale is available.
You may also refer to a copy of the draft supplemental Standard of Practice.
Please see the briefing note on page 210 of the September 15–16 Board meeting for additional details regarding these changes.
Next Steps
The Board will consider the feedback received and make any revisions to the supplemental standard at the December 2025 meeting. Pharmacy teams will have until January 2027 to implement these changes in full and guidance on managing the transition will be made available.
Updates on implementation of the changes will be provided on the Changes to the Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety (AIMS) Program webpage.
Read The Feedback
The proposed changes are clearly written and easy to understand. Continuous Quality improvement is important and reviewing trends and implementing action plans to mitigate the root cause help to improve patient safety. We appreciate that pharmacies have the ability to pick their reporting platform vs. it being prescriptive to one. A 1 year timeline should be sufficient for implementation so we don’t foresee any barriers or challenges for implementation. The proposed changes align with other provinces who have already moved in this direction.
Please make change to Easy access to Program Thanks
We understand and support the importance of the AIMS program in promoting patient safety. However, reporting errors and near misses should be a straightforward process that imposes no additional financial or administrative burden on pharmacies. To ensure consistent and practical adoption, the reporting platform must be simple, user-friendly, and quick to use. This will encourage regular participation without disrupting daily operations. Additionally, the frequency of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) meetings should be determined at the discretion of pharmacy managers, based on the unique needs and workflow of each pharmacy.
I see AIMS as a glorified version of ISMP. If the purpose is universal data collection, then its fine, but if that is the case then the cost of the platform should be ministry funded. The cost should not be passed down to the pharmacy owner. The platform does not in any way facilitate error reporting as my understanding is that it is data collection for a national registry…why should the pharmacy have to pay for that? ISMP is free to use and also is a method of data collection for futre error reduction, I would prefer to continue to use that in conjunction with the hard copy reporting my pharmacy has been using for the past 25 years.
I don’t believe pharmacies should have to pay for the reporting platform! Just another “tax” on us! It did not go well for Prescribeit when they wanted to charge pharmacies. You have a low uptake of this platform, so charging us to use it will not increase uptake!
While I understand and agree with the goal of collecting medication error data for analysis and process improvements, it is extremely unfair for the costs to be passed to Pharmacies and pharmacy professionals. PharmaPod is extremely time consuming to use which is a significant resource drain in pharmacy. OCP should focus on other priorities like dealing with corporate pressures, PPNs, malicious OCP complaints from patients, burnout, low wages and reimbursement rates, increased work load and public expectation, etc, which all impact patients’ autonomy and health outcomes. To summarize: PharmaPod is NOT an effective tool for error and incident reporting/tracking but we should find an alternative since this is something pharmacy professionals should be doing. Charging pharmacies for an ineffective tool is a bigger NO. P.S. In case you (OCP staff) has not noticed: their training module has not been updated in years to reflect the changes to the platform so essentially everyone is left to figure out the platform for themselves. With all this money it’s charging, where is the money going? How is it improving the process for pharmacy professionals and ultimately patients and patient care?
Please do not add additional administrative burden to overworked pharmacy managers. Quarterly meetings is too much, let each pharmacy practice decide how and when to do this. More administrative tasks = less patient care. Error reporting and analysis is important, but PharmaPod is a make work project that is far too time consuming. Passing the cost along to pharmacies for a reporting system seems inappropriate as our fees increased substantially over the past few years, in addition to other industry fees that keep getting added on to running a pharmacy. Increasing wages, increasing bills, and now another payment for a reporting system? All with no dispensing fee increases and nominal fees for patient care activities? It doesn’t add up.
The College’s approach to “improving patient safety” through the AIMS program raises serious concerns about fairness and consistency. On one hand, the College mandates medication incident reporting systems but passes the implementation costs directly onto pharmacies. On the other, it supports Preferred Provider Networks (PPNs) that restrict patient autonomy and limit accessibility for those who prefer to choose their own pharmacy. Both decisions create added strain on the profession — one increases operational costs, the other restricts independence — leaving independent pharmacies caught in the middle. If patient safety is truly the priority, the College should fund or subsidize the systems it requires rather than downloading costs onto pharmacists already burdened by rising renewal fees, inflation, and stagnant reimbursement. Mandatory reporting is a regulatory function — not an expense pharmacies should be forced to absorb. If patient autonomy matters, the College must address the inequities created by PPNs, which limit where patients can receive care and disadvantage pharmacies outside those networks. These conflicting directions show a lack of clarity in priorities. Patient safety and patient autonomy should not be competing principles, yet the College’s current approach forces pharmacies to sacrifice both — leaving independent pharmacies caught in the middle.
A simpler program $10 /year to replace the bulky and cumbersome pharmapod would be ok
The platform is a complete waste and all the college is just wasting everyone’s time with this. It is underused because it provides little to no value. So now we have to provide everyone with logins and pay for it ourselves. Does this mean that our fees decrease as this was included as part of our fees? Most likely no. Pharmacy all use their own processes to deal with errors and unless there is an issue let us keep doing that. If for some reason the college deems a pharmacy to be a risk to the public then make them sign up for this.
I am sure there are some pharmacies that still use old incident reporting forms that achieve the same result. I have not heard of any OCP inspectors investigating compliance with the Pharmapod platform- so what is the point? A great idea perhaps but poorly executed.
Aims program is alright , but most pharmacies have their own platform and compliance regulations for reporting/recording errors and root cause analysis discussions and documentation of this especially with corporate run pharmacies There should be more emphasis on making this mandatory for all pharmacies using their own platform to complete all steps .There should be a direct link from pharmacies to Pharmapod . We are duplicating our work and having to do enter in 2 places and this does not make sense .With all of our scope expanding and more work being added for pharmacists which is great for the public and pharmacists are really utilizing their knowledge to help with health care costs provincially . However, there has to be more focus on keeping patients safe and creating a safer model for patients by keeping services separate from dispensing . There is no real time to even read everything and all data on Pharmapod. So not realistic at all . Thanks
I disagree with passing the costs of reporting platform to pharmacies. Pharmacies have not seen a dispensing fee increase in many years, along with increased licencing fees and college fees (which have grown with inflation) and with increasing competition against PPNs (which the college has yet to act on), many pharmacies will not be able to bear this additional cost. There is not a lot of competition in these platforms since all pharmacies were currently using the OCP mandated pharmapod. Once the costs to pharmacies are passed directly to the pharmacies we will be at risk of being gouged. This will further reduce the accessibility of pharmacies, who are financially stretched thin in terms of being able to pay for employees. The college should be covering the costs of these platforms simply because the college will be able to better negotiate the prices for these platforms. If the costs must be passed on, there should be mandates made to cap the costs of the platform to what the college was paying. I am of the opinion as above per another pharmacist input.
We are already paying very high renewal fees with way lower wages . We have not seen an increase in dispensing fee for ages and if not more we are seeing decline in fees which we can make for flu shots etc. Pharmacies and pharmacists already do more in the name of patient care which they love and learn to do . There should not be extra pressure or fee for this no good platform of pharma pod . Takes a lot of time to fill and close an incident . Its better if we reduce the annual renewal fee because that keeps increasing every year despite our wages or dispensing fee . This is totally uncalled for . With our increasing duties and pressures should come increase hourly wage as well . We are helping the government and patients save tax payers money with all our efforts , Its time that we should be heard too . No we do not want this platform to be compulsory and be charging us fee
Please do not put more costs on pharmacies. We are already struggling enough. OCP needs to consider that all this extra unnecessary stress put on pharmacists with additional regulations that may not even improve patient safety can actually negatively impact patient safety in the end!! OCP has acknowledged that external factors such as workplace pressures can affect pharmacists, and this would be another external factor putting more stress on us! Have mercy on us! You already have increased our fee for what seems to be no benefit, you lack efficiency as an organization, our ODB fees have seen 0 increase, we have increasing inflation and costs, can barely staff our stores which are getting BUSIER, and now you want to put on ADDITIONAL costs on us PLUS quarterly meetings?? OCP, how do you think it’s realistic to have quarterly meetings with all pharmacy teams in Ontario? Let the pharmacy teams manage quality control in their own way. If I am not mistaken, this is an aspect that is inspected when we have inspections. As long as the pharmacy has its own method and SOP on quality improvement, why further insert more work? Please OCP, consider the feedback we are leaving as it is overwhelmingly clear that the majority of us won’t support this.
Stop it! We are professionals. The College got it all wrong. “To protect the public” doesn’t mean “to harass pharmacists”, which is actually what the College has actually been doing over the years. Stop harassing us and let us work and protect our patients the way we know. Are doctors harassed the way we are harassed???
I have seen the mistakes happen in pharmacy and their mitigation since i began in the pharmacy some 17 years ago . This platform is just a wastage of time and money . They want to collect data , then make it simple easy and quick and no one shall have to pay for it since techs and pharmacist have their time dedicated to what matters most ! Pt care . Pharmacist working at such lower wages and no one making money on these medications but only the pharma companies and insurance . We need to increase pharmacist wages and dispensing fees . This platform has helped no one just compiling same sort of mistakes . No one has time for such petty meetings where the people who are managers or sycophants will continue to bash and pressurize the ones who really work hard to serve their patients . No Thankyou
AIMS program has its benefits for reviewing error and near misses that can definitely helpful for future error prevention. However reporting tool on extra cost doesn’t seems fair.This should be covered by fee collected by college to run the pharmacy. Pharmacy dispensing fee has been not increased by odb many years to match the inflation.and patients in ontario doesn’t afford to pay their full copay.GTA pharmacies waive copay or reduced .Where will be pharmacy covered extra cost. When minor ailments implemented that is also extra cost for pharmacy to use any platform .Does we get fair paid compare to physician who will be paid for same ailment? No. Pharmapod platform is not helpful as it’s has bunchful of questions and doesn’t help pharmacy to deal with error. Pharmacy should be follow standard reporting for instore documentation of error,and solving the problem as we are already doing it. Ocp can create a standard reporting form that all pharmacy can use to document the error and it’s outcome with no additional cost.
The six comments posted above have given me hope that I am still working among professional pharmacists and genuine human beings. I would much prefer to devote my time to studying pharmacology rather than completing meaningless reports.
Pharmapod is cumberosome and very time consuming. It has added a little value to my practice when it comes to quality assurance and self assessment. We difinitely need to change the incident reporting platform that is effective and straightforward. We do not want to add cost to it as well as there is always a talk about adding cost to pharmacy but never a talk about increasing professional fee or a dispensing fee. OCP can guide us with what platform is available to use. What has worked in the past is, incident reporting to OCP via Fax or email, near misses documentations and staff education at the same time.
It would be more reasonable for OCP to slightly increase the annual renewal fee and take responsibility for negotiating with PharmaPod—or any other vendor—on behalf of pharmacists. This would save costs and avoid pushing the burden directly onto individual pharmacies. Alternatively, it would be fairer if these costs were charged to the federal or provincial Ministries of Health, rather than pharmacists who are already under financial strain. The suggestion of quarterly meetings feels more like a public relations gesture than a practical solution. Many young interns will see through this—it doesn’t address the real issue. The reality is becoming increasingly frustrating for pharmacists, as costs continue to be downloaded onto us. It’s similar to when e-prescribing was introduced: instead of charging physicians, the costs and inefficiencies of a glitchy system were offloaded onto pharmacies. What we need from OCP is a stronger focus on protecting the financial sustainability of community pharmacies. If this sector weakens or collapses, Ontarians will face even greater strain on emergency departments, hospitals, and family doctors—at a much higher cost to taxpayers. OCP has been quick to adjust annual renewal fees in line with inflation. But has there been any negotiation with ODB/OHIP to update dispensing fees, which have remained stagnant for over 15 years? By ignoring this imbalance, OCP risks accelerating the decline of community pharmacies—a vital pillar of healthcare delivery.
I Agree with :All registered pharmacy staff will have unique logins for the medication incident reporting platform at their primary place of practice” I SUGGEST CHANGING “A safety self-assessment (SSA) be completed at least once every two years” TO EVERY 3 OR 4 YEARS I SUGGEST CHANGING “Continuous quality improvement (CQI) meetings be held at least once every quarter” TO EVERY PHARMACY MANAGER WOULD DECIDE ON THE NUMBER BASED ON STAFFING, TRAINING, NUMBER OF INCIDENTS ETC.
Well ANYTHING will be better than Pharmapod. Have you ever tried using that software?? Pages and pages for one report!!! Way too long. We are too busy, so just cannot report errors or near misses!! Compare pharmapod to government ADR reporting: arduous and horribly long vs short and simple! We shouldn’t have to pay for new software. And we need to trial the available software before commenting.
I disagree with passing this cost onto pharmacies. All costs keep increasing with no increase in fee to keep up with inflation. Additionally, I do not find Pharmapod helpful, and it is just duplicating workload, as we still have our paper based process in place. Any mandated system is unlikely to work as well for the pharmacy as the process we currently have in place, set up over 30 years of experience to ensure errors are minimized and safely discussed if they do happen. Having a paper based process allows all staff to view the errors and near misses physically at the pharmacy in a timely manner, without having to set aside dedicated time/remember to log into a platform to check for updates. I have not found that Pharmapod increases patient safety. If anything, continuing to add more tasks to pharmacies without increasing fees is increasing patient safety risk by overworking pharmacists and pharmacy staff when pharmacies are unable to staff appropriately due to excess workload/wage affordability.
Thank you for this opportunity. In reading the outline of the anticipated changes, I believe there has been an overlooked issue and describe it below. You can have registrants (Part B, in particular) working (technically) at a pharmacy location but having nothing to do with patient care (not in an “active patient care” setting, having nothing to do with the prescription filling processes and therefore, nothing to do with AIMS matters). While the proposal exempts “occasional and relief pharmacists” I believe the OCP should specifically also include Part B registrants. By nature of their annual renewals, they must acknowledge that they will not take part in providing drug information, etc. as part of their practice. Many may be in a setting which has nothing to do with dispensing errors, patient care, etc. And as such, there is no need for them to be required to comply with the self-assessments and reports, as Part B registrants are exempt from those requirements. Has consideration been given, however, to internet pharmacies and how this will be regulated/confirmed? An example is an issue whereby some pharmacies are found on the OCP website under an accredited name, but are operating an internet facility under a completely different name that does NOT SHOW UP ON THE PUBLIC REGISTER when it is searched. This is a major loophole at the present time, and will definitely be compounded by this new requirement when “pharmacies” are operating that are not listed as such on the OCP register. Please consider this scenario as well. Thank you.
These proposed changes reflect yet another example of the College adding layers of bureaucracy without addressing real issues in pharmacy practice. Mandating quarterly CQI meetings and a biannual SSA will not magically improve patient safety, it will only siphon time and energy away from patient care and burden already overstretched staff. Forcing unique logins for every staff member is a perfect illustration of administrative overreach, it complicates workflows while offering no measurable benefit to safety or reporting accuracy. This is regulatory box-checking disguised as “quality improvement.” Instead of micromanaging pharmacy operations with arbitrary requirements, the College should focus on outcomes and practical solutions that genuinely support frontline professionals. Otherwise, these changes risk becoming nothing more than a bureaucratic exercise that erodes morale and does little to advance patient safety. Forcing the Pharmacy to shoulder yet another cost on top of the mandatory ESI “subscription fee”, the PrescribeIT fee, and more to come. I don’t even see the point of commenting because the College doesn’t take any of these into consideration anyways.
I do not agree with mandating quarterly quality improvement meetings. Each organization is different and it should depend upon the analysis of trends in that organization’s safety events. This will result in more meaningful change than fulfilling another check-box list to be completed each year. The frequency should be up to the discretion of the organization. It will ebb and flow. The way the information is presented and distributed to the team should also be flexible as practice sites vary.
The Pharmapod platform has contributed nothing to medication safety in my pharmacy. It is also cumbersome to use. Time spent answering all those stupid questions that mean nothing to me could be better spent with patients. My previous method of paper reporting and having all members of staff read, discuss with me and sign off on was much more effective of raising on site awareness. Quarterly meetings are a waste of time. Best practice is that every error should be discussed within 7 days with the persons involved and within 30 days with all who need to review. There is benefit to a national platform to collect data. This should be funded by the College as it doesn’t directly impact my pharmacy.
I completely disagree with this strategy. Our pharmacy utilizes our own unique incident reporting system that works for us. It involves the entire team reviewing any incidents or near misses, and openly discussing them with each other. It has nothing to do with a cumbersome and time wasting online reporting system. We’ve been able to successfully implement MANY safety strategies by being open about errors, error prevention and brainstorming solutions. If we relied on online reporting, none of this would have been possible. Online error reporting is a joke – nobody reviews it, and it’s not transparent or easily reviewed by all staff. I find it a complete waste of time in terms of actually making a difference to my patients. It’s just another example of dollars wasted on something that has minimal impact on patient safety. In the last six years of reporting through AIMS, not one single meaningful piece of information has been communicated to me or my staff. What is the actual downstream impact to my patients and their safety?? I would encourage OCP to allow safety reporting to be completed in a way that is efficient and effective and suits the needs of each specific pharmacy – online or not. This is also just another example of downloading costs and to pharmacies. I think OCP needs to do some serious self reflection of their own spending to minimize their own costs.
OCP wants quarterly quality meetings to be standardized! I think the Owner/Designated Manager should know their business better than OCP! If I need a quality meeting I will call for one every week if I feel it is needed. OCP should stay out of trying to run my Pharmacy! What is next? Is OCP going to tell me what hours my store should be open? Enough with all these regulations!
This is TOO much for us. We are already burnt out and most us do have families outside of work that also need our time, please stop over working us, we already work LONG hours
I greatly appreciate and support the proposed changes on Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety ( AIMS ) program changes. These changes will help greatly to grant medication safety and excellent quality practice in Ontario’s community pharmacies. The changes are easy to understand and align with the objectives of the AIMS program for better safety in medication and quality improvement. I don’t see any barriers for implementing the proposed changes.
I disagree with passing the costs of reporting platform to pharmacies. Pharmacies have not seen a dispensing fee increase in many years, along with increased licencing fees and college fees (which have grown with inflation) and with increasing competition against PPNs (which the college has yet to act on), many pharmacies will not be able to bear this additional cost. There is not a lot of competition in these platforms since all pharmacies were currently using the OCP mandated pharmapod. Once the costs to pharmacies are passed directly to the pharmacies we will be at risk of being gouged. This will further reduce the accessibility of pharmacies, who are financially stretched thin in terms of being able to pay for employees. The college should be covering the costs of these platforms simply because the college will be able to better negotiate the prices for these platforms. If the costs must be passed on, there should be mandates made to cap the costs of the platform to what the college was paying.
Identifying and preventing medication errors is a key component of pharmacy practice That being said, Pharmapod is a brutally bad piece of software to use, and has little to no relevance to the prevention of dispensing errors in day-to-day practice, which is of course why no one is using it Our pharmacy had an in-house solution that collected and stored incident information in our pharmacy practice software, but was deemed insufficient by OCP because the data was not shareable. The logical evolution of AIMS is to incorporate error and near-miss information into practice management software in real time as the incident is being identified with the ability to later submit the data to ISMP for analysis At pharmacy level, we will need more guidance than this document provides in order to replace Pharmapod Has OCP or NAPRA discussed this issue with pharmacy software vendors?